Why do we have silent letters in the English language? Can anyone please clarify my uncertainty...

The English language began as a pidgin of Latin and various Germanic languages, allowing nobility and commoners to more easily converse with each other. That early English wasn't very much at all like the english we speak now and looks totally like a foreign language when written. The form of English we're more familiar with began when French was introduced into it, but since then there have also been loanwords and strange grammatical constructs added from lots of other languages. So it tends to be really really inconsistent in its rules for pretty much everything.

tl;dr English was basically made by tossing a bunch of languages together in a blender. It's kinda messy.

Firespirit · 26-30, M

To fuck with people trying to learn English

Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M

Over time England was invaded by Celts; Picts; Scots; Vikings; French; Germanic nations; plus of course, the Latin connection with the Romans.
So certain words will have adapted; changed slightly over time.
One also has to remember that it's only been since the turn of the last millennia that most languages were written down ! And even then, written by monks and political folk since they were the few that had been educated to any degree !
Quite how you go from enuff which is 15th century written English. To Enough. Which is 18th century English.....

Existentior · M

There is a particular word (which I forgot) but its origin is of laziness and practicality. People in the olden days used to say certain words so fast (due to business relations stress, certainly in the Industrial Revolution) that they started omitting consonants.. and then it became accepted matter.

I think an example might be that of 'actor'. In other languages it used to be 'actor' and now it became 'ator', which old language purists look down against.

Language varies from time to time; it is ever-changing.